NO DPS or Threat Meters

[Torq]

The guild I was talking about was Legacy of Steel. I'm not sure whether you forgot about them or if you just don't consider them to be a hardcore guild. I don't think it's particularly important to this thread in either case though.

Dear Dinadass,
Actually i'd not heard of them to be honest. By my definition "truly" hardcore are those guilds who got either world firsts, or region firsts.

Anyway, with regards what is important or relevant to this thread, I don't think a little digression is going to hurt when put next to the massive unicorn posting from HackieDoodle.

The actual conversation I wanted you to continue was what you, consider to be hard content in WoW. You mentioned C'Thun and AQ40 a few times, but I wanted you to go into more depth, as I still maintain that EQ1 content was not even in the same league of difficulty, based on the mechanics and era it was played in.

Care to elaborate?

Regards,
T

[Oggiefishier]

I'd love to have that in game.It's just an evolution in mechanics feedback.

true.. not only does it do a person by person break down for dps.. it does total damge. interupts/dodge/paries/hits/glancing blows/ etc it also does hps total healing with a similar break down for every single thing..

a mod like recount isnt JUST a dps meter.. it breaks down every thing you did during the fight including WHAT KILLED YOU! you cna literally tell if the tank died fro mthe tank being under geared/the healer not hitting hard enough with the heals(healer is under geared) or if the tank died to neglect..( if the healer went oom the healers under geared and has too small of a mana pool) literally you can in 5 minutes figure out what went wrong.

[Ciowyn]

I would count Recount as a Parser from that screenshot and nope never tried it. Never went near WoW, was not a fan of the warcraft universe so played SWG, EQ and EQ2, and went onto more modern games, and skipped over WoW.

I would still prefer to use an out of game engine because its usually easier to make it show exactly what you want, hell to be honest I likely to write my own anyhow its not that hard as long as the combat logs are sensible set up.

[Plus1]

Again I say,
Is it that important?
Is it so important that to have the insignificant # of imaginary damage done by your imaginary character be a little higher than someone elses insignficant #s? How can someone be "dead weight" in a game?
In my experience people who use meters are the people who take games wayyy too seriously. It's a game,
no reason to turn it into a job. Having my raid leader bark at me for not doing "enough" just means my raid leader has forgotten how to play(as in the act of doing something pointless for enjoyment, not skill). You're not a special forces unit fighting for your life, you're a 10-40 yr old living in a fantasy world. just because someone else isn't as awesome as you think they should be is still no reason to be a ****. If someone in your group is being a ****, then kick them for that. If Meter didn't = overserious Jerk I wouldn't have a problem with them.

[Deson]

Again I say,
Is it that important?
Is it so important that to have the insignificant # of imaginary damage done by your imaginary character be a little higher than someone elses insignficant #s? How can someone be "dead weight" in a game?
In my experience people who use meters are the people who take games wayyy too seriously. It's a game,
no reason to turn it into a job. Having my raid leader bark at me for not doing "enough" just means my raid leader has forgotten how to play(as in the act of doing something pointless for enjoyment, not skill). You're not a special forces unit fighting for your life, you're a 10-40 yr old living in a fantasy world. just because someone else isn't as awesome as you think they should be is still no reason to be a ****. If someone in your group is being a ****, then kick them for that. If Meter didn't = overserious Jerk I wouldn't have a problem with them.

But the people who use them are already overserious jerks. They were like it in EQ when I played until OoW and never even heard of parsers and in EQ2 from launch.If anything, the meters do you a favor by having those jerks kick you from a group before you even get in to it.I've never seen parsers turn otherwise good people into jerks.

[Dinadass]

Dear Dinadass,
Actually i'd not heard of them to be honest. By my definition "truly" hardcore are those guilds who got either world firsts, or region firsts.

Anyway, with regards what is important or relevant to this thread, I don't think a little digression is going to hurt when put next to the massive unicorn posting from HackieDoodle.

The actual conversation I wanted you to continue was what you, consider to be hard content in WoW. You mentioned C'Thun and AQ40 a few times, but I wanted you to go into more depth, as I still maintain that EQ1 content was not even in the same league of difficulty, based on the mechanics and era it was played in.

Care to elaborate?

Regards,
T

LoS did have multiple world firsts btw, and their leader was Jeffrey Kaplan (Tigole) who became one of WoW's lead game designers, I'd say they were just as hardcore as most of the other guilds you listed.

I'd say the main thing that made certain WoW fights more challenging than EQ content of the same era was simply that WoW was a faster-paced game with a lot more spells/abilities and variables in general than EQ had. After a while, Blizzard started tuning content to be easier and more forgiving, but the end of Vanilla and parts of TBC were initially balanced around a full raid of people that could not make virtually a single mistake or they wiped. I've always believed that a lot of the challenge in EQ came down to the RNG giving you unpredictable damage spikes, fizzles, lag, things like that. There were definitely mechanics of fights that were hard, but it didn't really seem like the EQ engine was capable of throwing as much at you as WoW.

[Plus1]

But the people who use them are already overserious jerks. They were like it in EQ when I played until OoW and never even heard of parsers and in EQ2 from launch.If anything, the meters do you a favor by having those jerks kick you from a group before you even get in to it.I've never seen parsers turn otherwise good people into jerks.

They've always been there, true. If I gotta deal with them why not at least make em work for it.
Elitist jerks will always be around, Meters just mean that any lazy twit can be one with no actual effort.

[MistressM]

Again I say,
Is it that important?
Is it so important that to have the insignificant # of imaginary damage done by your imaginary character be a little higher than someone elses insignficant #s? How can someone be "dead weight" in a game?
In my experience people who use meters are the people who take games wayyy too seriously. It's a game,
no reason to turn it into a job. Having my raid leader bark at me for not doing "enough" just means my raid leader has forgotten how to play(as in the act of doing something pointless for enjoyment, not skill). You're not a special forces unit fighting for your life, you're a 10-40 yr old living in a fantasy world. just because someone else isn't as awesome as you think they should be is still no reason to be a ****. If someone in your group is being a ****, then kick them for that. If Meter didn't = overserious Jerk I wouldn't have a problem with them.

WTF!!!

If they aren't pulling their weight they must be humiliated, tortured and beaten!! Where have you been?!?!?!?!

Seriously, I understand to an extent why raid leaders feel they must keep tabs on their people. Especially since these are no longer the days of EQ1's 80 man raids. You can only take a select few and most successful guilds have a waiting list...why would a raid leader take the craptastic mage over the great one that does tons of damage? Doesn't make sense for the good of the group...and I get that....BUT, I also dislike meters because of some of the things I've seen people do with them. I REALIZE NOBODY here does it...there are a lot of JERKS that use meters to be JERKS - in PUG's, in Raids etc.

Again, I know this is a people issue more than a "damage meter issue" I get it! I just disliked the culture in WoW sooooooo much...and the damage meters seemed to push this kind of attitude along.

[Torq]

Dear Dinadass,

LoS did have multiple world firsts btw, and their leader was Jeffrey Kaplan (Tigole) who became one of WoW's lead game designers, I'd say they were just as hardcore as most of the other guilds you listed.

In that case, I stand corrected. It just wasn't a name that stuck out for me. I do remember Tigole, or the name at least. Props to him for making the transition from gamer to developer, although my thoughts on WoW are clear, it is still a noteworthy achievement.

I'd say the main thing that made certain WoW fights more challenging than EQ content of the same era was simply that WoW was a faster-paced game with a lot more spells/abilities and variables in general than EQ had

I'm not sure I agree with that. I see your point though to a degree. The speed of the actual raids I would say were on par, with regards spells/abilities I can only comment on the Paladin, having played a Paladin in EQ, VG and WoW I would place them in this order of complexity: VG > EQ > WoW. Sadly in WoW it is just a four button combination as a prot Paladin with absolutely no thought whatsoever.

I've always believed that a lot of the challenge in EQ came down to the RNG giving you unpredictable damage spikes, fizzles, lag, things like that

Agreed again, but only to a certain degree. Mana management was a total nightmare in EQ, as opposed to WoW. The rod situation and backup healers to mantain the mana pool I think is/was the hardest i've seen so far in raid mechanics.

There were definitely mechanics of fights that were hard, but it didn't really seem like the EQ engine was capable of throwing as much at you as WoW.

That is undeniable, then again we're talking very different eras, and the hardware isn't comparable really. Others probably remember EQ far better than I as I am nearing forty my recollection isn't as good, but as an example of difficulty the Ssra Emperor fight wasn't anything to be laughed at, nor were the GoD 6 man trials (third time I make reference to them now, but they truly tested all 6 players).

I guess I can only accept that there are differing aspects which make or made a game "difficult". From personal experience as a truly hardcore raider I would still put content in this order: EQ1 > VG > WoW. Maybe I am biased, maybe I had it easy in WoW, I don't think so though.

Thank you for the follow up and responses!

Regards,
T

[ag0nizing]

Eh most of EQ raid fights up untill mid PoP went like this.

Warrior pulls boss to corner, everyone piles around the ***, beat.

Warrior Auto attacks, hits kick and taunt.

As much as people wanna talk up how hard EQ was, it was more of the system in place then the actual content.

[Deson]

They've always been there, true. If I gotta deal with them why not at least make em work for it.
Elitist jerks will always be around, Meters just mean that any lazy twit can be one with no actual effort.

And you don't want to be around them anyway. If anything, the self-segregation makes the case for in-game parsers. People who don't and won't use the number to be a jerk vastly outnumber those who do and parsers are incredible tools that just organize the vast amount of info the game is already sending you. Why can't the UI advance in such a manner where it's not just a collection of big numbers and effectively spam?

[Torq]

Eh most of EQ raid fights up untill mid PoP went like this.

Warrior pulls boss to corner, everyone piles around the ***, beat.

Warrior Auto attacks, hits kick and taunt.

As much as people wanna talk up how hard EQ was, it was more of the system in place then the actual content.

Dear Ag0nizing,
And most of the content in WoW is almost the same. Yes to a certain degree you're right, it was a lot of tank and spank. But your point is kind of lost since it's pretty much the same in all games.

Edit - And the simple undeniable fact is that it took a shed load more effort and concentration to keep that tank up in EQ pre or post PoP than it does in WoW.

The differences would be that even in vanilla WoW it only took 10% of the effort to get to MC than it did to take down Nagafen or Vox. It took 10% of the effort for every expansion thereafter to get geared for the next content in comparison.

Latency is discussed above, that in itself added a ton of difficulty. So did buff timers, as well as the fact it was "new" in comparison to the WoW era where a load of the players already knew what they were doing from previously released MMOs, and on and on.

When it comes to pure actual mechanics, i'm still waiting for examples of what constitutes hard in WoW. As in: This fight required you to do X things at once, and OT this and that.

Enough jibber jabber which just states an opinion, put up some hard facts or examples?

Regards,
T

[Dinadass]

Dear Dinadass,

In that case, I stand corrected. It just wasn't a name that stuck out for me. I do remember Tigole, or the name at least. Props to him for making the transition from gamer to developer, although my thoughts on WoW are clear, it is still a noteworthy achievement.

I'm not sure I agree with that. I see your point though to a degree. The speed of the actual raids I would say were on par, with regards spells/abilities I can only comment on the Paladin, having played a Paladin in EQ, VG and WoW I would place them in this order of complexity: VG > EQ > WoW. Sadly in WoW it is just a four button combination as a prot Paladin with absolutely no thought whatsoever.

Agreed again, but only to a certain degree. Mana management was a total nightmare in EQ, as opposed to WoW. The rod situation and backup healers to mantain the mana pool I think is/was the hardest i've seen so far in raid mechanics.

That is undeniable, then again we're talking very different eras, and the hardware isn't comparable really. Others probably remember EQ far better than I as I am nearing forty my recollection isn't as good, but as an example of difficulty the Ssra Emperor fight wasn't anything to be laughed at, nor were the GoD 6 man trials (third time I make reference to them now, but they truly tested all 6 players).

I guess I can only accept that there are differing aspects which make or made a game "difficult". From personal experience as a truly hardcore raider I would still put content in this order: EQ1 > VG > WoW. Maybe I am biased, maybe I had it easy in WoW, I don't think so though.

Thank you for the follow up and responses!

Regards,
T

I think a main part of my view on this is that in EQ, I played a warrior. In WoW, a warlock (usually affliction). So I went from auto-attack, hope for procs, turn off attack during enrage, every now and then pop a disc or AE taunt. To having a ~6 spell rotation, with different pets to choose from, summoning stuff for the raid, managing life and mana via lifetap, worrying about aggro, deciding if it was time to use AoE attacks or not, etc etc. So my experiences went from pretty much the most basic EQ class to one of the more complex WoW classes. I'm sure that has something to do with shaping my opinion.

I also was not a raid leader in EQ, but was in WoW, in addition to helping manage the DKP, recruiting, being warlock class leader, etc.

[Wolfgrey666]

Hmm to put it simply in my words as someone who played EQ and Eq 2 since their release times i can say this: WoW is far easier than both.Yes they may have had more complex classes(cept Eq2's are better) but once you had a certain pattern , that stuck for the rest of the game to end game.I got immensly bored with WoW despite my playtime and work put into the game.

I am to say the least anti-meter and anti parsel.I knew easily who was doing well or not.Learning to watch my whole screen and react to what i had to stayed with me.Its why im better at video games than my girlfriend who loves them.I always spot things she doesnt.She is a example of a the minds we have in gaming today.Minds like ours are quickly being put aside.Being able to observe,react, and strategize is just meaning less and less.

At any rate thats my opinion for now.A bit biased i know but still my opinion.

[AvianSun]

...AvianSun, you say you would take someone to a hard 5 man dungeon who had never done it over someone else who had run it many times, all other things being equal, I have a hard time believing or understanding that. We're talking about hard content. Maybe you feel you could essentially 4-man it, but if it's hard enough then that will be essentially impossible, and most people would not want to take an unnecessary handicap into a challenging area if they didn't have to. Wiping to a boss over and over because the person you brought has never done it rather than one-shotting it with a person who has the required experience doesn't seem like a responsible choice for a group leader to make. If the new guy is a guildy/friend, and the rest of the group is cool with it, then sure. But if you're in a guild group that wants to get the dungeon cleared and move on, and you pick the 0 experience player rather than the veteran, you're doing the rest of the group a disservice...

Well this was in regards to the particular scenario where I'm NOT running with my guild.
The reality is that very rarely have I had cause to do that, but when I do that's what I did.
If I'm running a small party for something, chances are I'm bored.
There's a LOT of people who feel as you do, and just want to bang out the run as fast as possible.

I figure people need a chance to start, and as I consider myself a pretty good player usually, I can offer strategies, advice and hopefully circumvent the lack of DPS from this player.
(Remember, we're talking about two equal DPS toons, not tank or healers.)
The added benefit is another player who either now knows the drill or I've discovered someone I'm not likely to party with again.